Collected VAS "House Rules"

[Chernobyl]

Just post your house rules in this thread. I'll post the ones we've used and/or come across...

Ship Gunnery (the impossible 7): a roll of 6 always hits.

Ship Gunnery (the impossible 7): ships with modified target numbers of 7, 8, 9 can be hit with a roll of 6, followed by a 4, 5, or 6 respectively.

Ship Gunnery (the impossible 7): secondary batteries ignore speed penalties to attack rolls.

Carrier Based Aircraft: can land and reload ordanance; takes 1 turn on deck.

Ship Based Aircraft (any): placing the aircraft counter next to the ship signifies "intent to launch" and cannot be engaged in a dogfight until they've moved away from the carrier/ship.

Torpedo Belt: does not provide protection in the bow or stern locations.

Torpedo Belt: only works against the first torpedo counter on each side.

Dive Bombers/Torpedo Bombers: have AD 6 (1 per plane).

Bombs: count as plunging fire.

Foul Weather: rather than -1 Command to checks, all surface ship Speeds are reduced by 1 (minimum of 1) and Turning are reduced by 1 (minimum of 1).

Long Lance Reloads: only 1 reload per launcher.

Submarine torpedoes: are not slow loading.

Spotters: move 14" rather than 7" speed, but cannot give spotting bonus when faster than 7".

Spotters: can radio target co-ordinates to any 1 friendly ship.

Ship Torpedoes: can target surfaced submarines.

 

[DM]

Most of mine are on my website.

 

[Myrm]

Just post your house rules in this thread.

Ship Torpedoes: can target surfaced submarines.

Errrm why is this a House Rule...either Im missing a rule in my rulebook or this is already allowed...and Im hoping Im not being blind here, help

 

[The Chauffeur]

ships can turn after moving half of their desired speed this turn, as opposed to half of their beginning max speed.

 

[juggler69uk]

Myrm wrote:
Errrm why is this a House Rule...either Im missing a rule in my rulebook or this is already allowed...and Im hoping Im not being blind here, help

Page 17/18 submersibles top of page 18 "Attack phase" :
"While a submersible is on the surface it is treated as a normal ship in all respects" Only when submerged, It can only be attacked by depth charges etc.

Page 18 Torpedoes, "place counter in contact with target VESSEL.

So unless theres another rule somewhere else, then its ok to torpedo a surfaced sub isnt it ?

 

[Chernobyl]

you're both right - I thought we'd house ruled that mistakenly, somebody kept saying that you could only use depth charges on subs...my bad..!

Chern

 

[Myrm]

Thanks, I thought I had lost some marbles and frankly I need to keep the few I have left

 

[E Nicely]

What I use:

This is a set of optional movement rules for VaS to provide a little more realism. Turning with the key isn’t used and instead all turning is based on 45 degree turns. A ships type will determine how tight of a turn it can pull off and what the “turn delay” will be.

Ship Type: Turn Delay:
Destroyers, DEs, Frigates 1”
Light Cruisers 1.5”
Cruisers, Heavy Cruisers, 2”
Battlecruisers, Battleships, Carriers, Submersibles, Civilian Vessels ½ of ship’s Speed score


The number listed for turn delay is the minimum distance a ship must move straight forward before executing a turn. A ships turn rating is how many 45 deg. turns it can make during its movement. The ship must move forward the listed distance on all turns including second and consecutive turns.

Ships with the Agile trait may ignore the turn delay once during movement. This can either give a ship the capability to pull off one 90 deg. turn or execute a turn at the very beginning of its movement. Additionally, the effects of Agile may be added together with turns resulting from a successful Come About SA. The effects of Agile still only may be applied once per movement phase, not once for normal turn score and once for adding a normal turn to Come About.

And I use a 3" minimum range for turreted guns. A target gets closer than that and its all secondaries and torpedoes.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Forget spotter planes they are just a nuisance.

All attrack aircraft get 3AD

SOMETHING to combat torpedo bulges, personally I think I would just scrap them as pointless but not sure about this.

Can Flank speed as unreasonable

Cpt Ishido Kremmen
PS only my humble opinion.

 

[Myrm]

I was tempted with introducing a 'No turning' rule while doing a Flank Speed order.

 

[Bob Hume]

Keep spotter planes but allow them to spot for any ship, not just the ship that launched them. This still makes them usefull but you don't have to launch hordes of them to get the bonus.

 

[RatPunk]

Two we're toying with are:

1. Laying smoke: A smoke trail is laid from where the ship began it's move to where the ship ended it's move. The smoke still goes away at the end of the turn. This seems more realistic to me.

2. Recovering & rearming aircraft: Planes can be recovered on one turn, spend the second turn rearming, and are ready to be launched again on the third.

 

[Myrm]

1. Laying smoke: A smoke trail is laid from where the ship began it's move to where the ship ended it's move. The smoke still goes away at the end of the turn. This seems more realistic to me.

We decided this was the best way to do it. From the back of the ship counter at the start of its turn to the funnel at the end of it. (it was a convenient way fo doing it and no one bothered much about the non funnel to funnel route.

 

[Captain_Nemo]

Keep almost everything as is and use a D8!

With "8" always hitting.

 

[captainsmirk]

Surely using a D8 would result in tiny destroyer pop guns and secondary armaments being capable of penetrating battleship armour?


Nick

 

[Poi]

Keep almost everything as is and use a D8!

With "8" always hitting.

Just think about that for a minute.

You'd do this without rescaling everything else? Target and Armour stay the same? Using D8, everything becomes easier to hit and destroy, unless you rescale all the stats.

Why did Mongoose go for D6? Because everyone has them, and the game is sold as a book, so no box to put a bunch of D8s in.

 

[DM]

Its not such a daft idea (although I'd not have the "everything hits on 8" element) provided it is restricted to AD rolls only. In fact I had starrted to develop somethng similar based on the use of D10s (needing a new set of range band modifiers and some other tweaks) but its a project that has stalled for various reasons.

 

[Captain_Nemo]

You'd do this without rescaling everything else? Target and Armour stay the same? Using D8, everything becomes easier to hit and destroy, unless you rescale all the stats.

Why did Mongoose go for D6? Because everyone has them, and the game is sold as a book, so no box to put a bunch of D8s in.
_________________
Poi

Hammer that's an excellent point but I just got a bit looped from reading all the negative comments about not being able to hit destroyers. So D8 seemed the easiest solution off the top of my addlepated head.

I really would prefer the D10 idea that DM mentioned but without rescaling D10 would be too much. D8 should work I don't see a huge shift in hits regardless of the extra 2 pips but it would a least cover the hit on 7 problem with some of the smaller faster ships.

I also am famous for rolling more 2's and 3's than Carter's got liver pills